


Paper Tealights

by Inky_Scribbles



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Frontier
Genre: Autistic Character, Autistic Kanbara Takuya, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Kanbara Takuya, Bisexual Male Character, But also, Campfires, Gen, Headcanon, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I mean its only for a second but i thoguht id put it in there anyway, Internalized Homophobia, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, Let Takuya say fuck, Not Canon Compliant, The whole team appears, i guess, i guess?, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22122802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inky_Scribbles/pseuds/Inky_Scribbles
Summary: The night after Takuya first becomes BurningGreymon, Tomoki approaches Takuya about something he noticed.
Relationships: Himi Tomoki | Tommy Himi & Kanbara Takuya
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	Paper Tealights

**Author's Note:**

> So i decided to go for japanese names for the humans, but american for the digimon.
> 
> this is quite a bit of self projection. it is 3am, my first fic of the decade, a reignited special interest from when i was quite small and i am.. Living
> 
> Honestly the people who follow me probably came for the bnha or batfam stuff and im out here like.... doing none of that.... my bad lmao

Takuya pokes at the dwindling embers of their hasty camp-setup. Sparks burst from between two burned-out logs and glitter to the ground. He watches them blink out with drooping eyelids.

Kouji hadn’t been even slightly exaggerating the exhaustion of maintaining a beast form. After doing it twice in one day, he isn’t feeling particularly lively. Still, the idea of doing all that damage; burning down the forest, fighting Beetlemon and KendoGarurumon…nearly killing Tomoki.

Well. He couldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t do at least something to make up for it, and taking up the first watch of the night had seemed like a good idea at the time (something they’d decided to start after the whole debacle with Bakumon - after all, what if Grumblemon attacks while they’re asleep?).

And besides that, Kouji comes off as a whole lot less standoffish without the frowns and the glares and with his head tilted kind of adorably.

A cold sheet of steel lodges itself into his ribcage. His breath stutters. He steps carefully away from that thought and leaves it to its box of “thoughts that we do not think”.

Purposefully, and a little shaken, he forces his eyes onto Junpei, who is snoring with small gasps in between. Then Izumi - who is attractive and who he has a crush on - over Bokomon and Neemon (snoring almost comically) and then to Tomoki.

He almost misses the way his eyes fly closed.

With a grin, he forces any shakiness out of his composure and carefully leans over to tap Tomoki (without the stick he’d been prodding the campfire with). “Hey,” he whispers, wincing when Junpei snorts loudly and rolls over. “What are you doing up?”

Tomoki cracks open one eye, as if he’s unsure if he’s allowed to be awake. He must see something in Takuya’s face, because he offers a tiny smile and sits up. His eyes linger nervously in his lap. “I was just thinking…”

“About what?”

“Well, I mean…” He looks up at Takuya unsurely, squinting as if he’s trying to find something. His mother does the same thing when she thinks he’s upset, but can’t tell what about. Whenever that happens, he thinks that she should just ask. This time, he’s not sure if he wants to know what Tomoki’s after. Usually, he’s pretty straight forward, and that’s nice. “About today. With BurningGreymon.”

Oh. Right. A smile drops unwillingly onto his face. He goes to speak, then pauses and clears his throat as quietly as possible. He practices a longer response for as long as he can allow himself, then gives up and goes for something shorter. “Yeah?” No stammering or mispronunciations, what a legend.

Tomoki knots his fingers into his pockets, his eyes not leaving the space where his ankle is revealed. There’s a small pattern of freckles there, and Takuya wonders if that’s what Tomoki is watching. Or if he’s even watching anything that’s in this small patch of forest at all. Maybe he’s reliving the stuff that happened. Today. With BurningGreymon.

“I-I mean… after the first time. Not when… not with the whole… y’know. After.”

Takuya takes a breath. It’s not an unusual breath. Same length and depth, just a tiny pocket of air. He feels the small vibration in his throat and chest. Then, “With Grumblemon?”

“No, no, right after. When you…” honestly the gaps between everything he’s saying would be a little irritating if Takuya didn’t need the reprieve every now and again. He has no idea what Tomoki wants to talk about, but he has a feeling he’s not going to like it.

Tomoki takes a breath of his own, sort of shaky, like he’s still not sure if he should broach the subject, even though the buildup has lasted this long. “Uh, when you hit your head.”

… He’d… kind of been hoping that they’d just write that off. As frustration. Or a side effect of BurningGreymon. Even though he’d been in control at that time. Or, you know, literally anything else. It had been a small fit of bad feelings that he wasn’t terribly fond of. It’s not like there were many people around to see it, and he’d hoped the others wouldn’t think too much of it - just write it off. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.

Just a normal boy.

But Tomoki hadn’t written it off, apparently. He’d noticed something - maybe multiple somethings. Maybe he knows. Or maybe he thinks it’s something else, and right now that is the best case scenario, because he can easily deny something he isn’t. Something he doesn’t have.

Right. He’s in the middle of a conversation. Better say something. 

In his rush, he accidentally speaks on an exhale, and the first word comes out kind of gusty. “What about it?” fortunately it was a short response, or he’d have run out of air. He very carefully does not gasp.

Tomoki looks kind of unsure still, but Takuya thinks he’d been doing a good job at being pretty passive this whole conversation. Is he still smiling? Yes, yes he is. Maybe it looks fake. Takuya really has no idea, and he kind of wishes he could look at a mirror to check without looking like a weirdo (damn societal standards). If mirrors even exist in the middle of this nowhere-forest.

“Um, well… It might have just been - ” (Oh fuck, is a smile a weird expression to have in this conversation? Should he look more distressed?) “ - BurningGreymon, but, uh, my brother. Is, uh.” Tomoki looks at him carefully. “Is autistic.”

Well. Shit.

The side of his face twitches. He tries to make sitting on his hands look incredibly casual. The type of thing he does out of habit because he likes the feeling of blood rushing back into his hands after long periods of pressure. Wait, is that the type of thing only autistic people would enjoy? Is he giving himself away no matter how many excuses he has banked up in his head?

“Al-right.” Damnit. It is just. One word. One word, no pauses. Hopefully Tomoki doesn’t notice.

“I was just wondering if - ” he’s doing that peering-thing again. The thing people do when they want to find something on his face that probably isn’t there. Or, not there in the way that they wish it is. Maybe Tomoki can see it anyway, though. Maybe he’s learned how to see the things on faces like his with practice.

From his brother. Who is also autistic. Which means that Tomoki might have been noticing all of the things that Takuya has been doing that maybe he didn’t notice himself, because there’s no one there to point them out to him (not that he’s complaining about that). So, Tomoki might already have the answer.

So he’s going to do that thing where someone asks a question but they want an answer that doesn’t fit the question, or something. Probably. Like when his mother says “have you been in the shower yet, Takuya?” and what she really means is “go in the shower Takuya”. The correct answer therefore becomes the action of going in the shower, and not answering “yes” or “no”. So that means he has to figure out what question Tomoki is actually asking - 

“ - you need any help. With anything.” he smiles. It’s probably supposed to be reassuring, but Takuya can’t be bothered to read any more into it because he is busy appreciating that he doesn’t have to answer a wacky double helix question. Only a simple one. Straightforward. Thank fuck.

“N-no,” Okay, a stutter, but he can make up for it in the next part. Nothing too terrible. Tomoki might even forget that it happened if the contents of what he’s saying is interesting enough. Maybe. “No, thank you.”

Tomoki smiles. “Okay. I…” he glances away, and Takuya follows his gaze to the others, who are still sleeping soundly. Well, hopefully, anyway. If Tomoki can feign sleep, then the others probably can, too. Except Neemon. Not that he’d know what they’re talking about. Probably. (Do digimon have developmental disorders? Do they even have brains, physically?) “I won’t tell them, or anything. If that’s what you want.”

“Right.” his throat is starting to get sore from talking. He can feel the pressure in the alcove between his chest and neck. The feeling he gets when talking is not a thing that should be happening. At all. He nods, since he can’t really affirm it vocally.

He wants to say “thanks” (that’s polite), but he supposes it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Or whenever his voice deigns to return. Thankfully, it hasn’t been too much of a problem so far. And… for some reason, Agunimon makes things easier. Maybe the confidence he gets, the rush, maybe that makes it better.

Hopefully Tomoki understands. Takuya thinks he might. After all, Tomoki used to seem so shy and anxious before he started being able to become Kumamon.

Tomoki pauses for a moment, then smiles, and goes back to the makeshift bed of leaves they’d made earlier. He falls asleep some time afterwards.

A few hours later than agreed, he wakes Junpei and falls asleep too fast to think too much on anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
